Now is the time for the Arkansas Tech University baseball program to enjoy its turn in the spotlight.

With a renovated home facility and a vastly improved pitching staff, fourth-year head coach Dave Dawson and the Wonder Boys are poised to have perhaps their best baseball season since ATU made the move to NCAA Division II status in 1995-96.

The nationally 25th-ranked Wonder Boys will host nationally 19th-ranked Southern Arkansas University for a Great American Conference series at Tech Field this weekend. The two sides will play a single game at 7 p.m. Friday and a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday — weather permitting. Admission will be free.

If you have not visited the newly-renovated Tech Field (which is located on the southwest corner of campus at the intersection of West L Street and North Glenwood Avenue), the chance to see one of the finest facilities in NCAA Division II baseball would be reason enough to head out to the ballpark this weekend.

As someone who loves both baseball and ATU, I am not ashamed to say some moisture formed in the corners of my eyes the first time I saw the Tech Field renovation project in its finished state. It is a program-changing development that puts our university’s baseball program in position to achieve at a level we have never seen before.

This weekend provides the Wonder Boys with an opportunity to take an important step.

Southern Arkansas is the current standard that every other Great American Conference baseball program must measure itself against.

The Muleriders captured the inaugural GAC regular-season and postseason baseball titles in 2012. They have reached the NCAA Division II Baseball Tournament for five consecutive years and recorded 36 or more wins for seven consecutive seasons.

By comparison, Arkansas Tech has not won a regular-season conference baseball title since earning a share of the 1998 Gulf South Conference West Division championship.

The Wonder Boys are still seeking their first postseason conference title and their first national tournament berth at the NCAA Division II level. They have never won more than 35 games in a season.

That could all change for ATU this season, and the No. 1 reason that it could is a pitching staff the likes of which has rarely been seen on campus.

The Wonder Boys’ team earned run average for this season was 4.25 following their three-game GAC sweep at the University of Arkansas at Monticello last weekend.

If Arkansas Tech can maintain that level of performance the rest of the season, it would give the Wonder Boys a team ERA more than a run per game lower than what they produced in each of the last eight seasons.

ATU has finished a season with a team ERA below 5.00 just three times (3.56 in 1996, 4.73 in 1997 and 4.81 in 2004) during its NCAA Division II era.

Add in an offensive attack that leads the GAC this season in runs scored (203), base hits (285) and is tied for the league lead in home runs (14) and doubles (58), and it’s easy to see why now is the time to climb on the Wonder Boys baseball bandwagon while there’s still room.

Join us as Tech Field Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Enjoy one of the 254 new chair back seats.

Take in the sights and sounds that only the ballpark can provide. Root, root, root for the Wonder Boys and be a part of what could be a season to remember for Arkansas Tech baseball.

Sam Strasner is director of university relations at ATU and the voice of Arkansas Tech athletics.